ROMANCING THE BOTTLE

O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away
their brains! That we should, with joy, pleasance revel and applause,
transform ourselves into beasts!

- --Cassio, in Othello, Act II, Scene III

There are 100,000 marijuana smokers in the U.S., and most are
Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music,
jazz and swing, result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes
white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others.

- -- Henry Anslinger, U. S. Federal Bureau of Narcotics Commissioner, 1937

Like many middle-aged men, I spend a lot of time reflecting on the
reckless stunts my friends and I unleashed on the world when we were
young and stupid. Whether the exploits took place in cars, beds,
barrooms or back alleys, one common factor jumps out from these
reveries: alcohol. World Health Organization data suggests that
alcohol kills nearly two million people every year. Stumbling down
memory lane, I can think of a dozen different ways that -- had dumb
luck failed us -- my friends and I might have been part of that statistic.

In some communities, the horrors associated with alcohol extend into
every household. These include many Canadian native reserves, where
booze has generated nothing short of a liquid holocaust. Even the
staggering fatality statistics don't include the legions of victims
who never take a sip: children born with fetal alcohol syndrome,
abused spouses of alcoholics, the prey of drunk drivers. In Mexico,
this week, one of those drunks fell asleep at the wheel and plowed
into a group of bike racers -- a horrific scene captured by a local
photographer. There but for the grace of God.

Oh wait, sorry -- scratch all that. I just read last week's column by
Barbara Kay on the subject of marijuana policy, and it turns out I've
gotten it precisely wrong. "Wine and spirits in moderation confer
health benefits," she writes. "From antiquity, the loving cultivation
of vineyards wherever possible, and the enjoyment of wine and spirits
has been a positive feature of all Western societies ... in which
alcohol [has] generally played a benign role."

"Because alcohol in moderation is culturally aligned with enhanced
fellowship and human interaction, it is therefore a communal as well
as an individual good," she adds. "Conversely, the purpose of
marijuana is the alteration of consciousness, an end achieved by a
process that thrives in solitude and mental torpor."

Of all the specious tactics trotted out by the enemies of marijuana
legalization, this is by far the most annoying. In their bid to gloss
over the hypocrisy of a society that criminalizes reefer while
permitting its far more dangerous, bottled cousin, traditionalists
compose odes to alcohol's virtues that would make a Bacardi marketing
executive blush. All of alcohol's ravages are dismissed with
sentimental nostrums summoning to mind sturdy peasant vintners
spreading health and good cheer at festive family gatherings, while
the relatively minor negative health effects of marijuana use -- it
can give you lung cancer, for instance, in the same way that smoking
anything can give you lung cancer --are hysterically asserted in the
finest tradition of Henry Anslinger.

For socially well-adjusted people, smoking marijuana "in moderation"
(to borrow a phrase) is hardly a process "that thrives in solitude
and mental torpor": Back in college, my friends and I spent many a
night enjoying the stuff in highly convivial fashion.

But I no longer partake. Getting stoned helps you zone out and escape
your responsibilities -- an attractive goal when you're a college
student, but one that generally seems less and less attractive as you
get older. The studies that suggest marijuana use is correlated with
depression, social alienation and the like should come as no
surprise: The people most likely to crave a drug-induced exit from
real life are the ones who, for whatever exogenous reason, have the
hardest time dealing with it.

That said, if someone is going to zone out, I'd prefer they did it
with reefer instead of liquor. The guy on reefer may be goofy and
unproductive, but at least he's not going to run a red light and
Tbonemy station wagon.

None of what I am saying here should be at all controversial -- at
least not to anyone who has actually smoked marijuana and observed
its comparatively benign effects. Then again, I'm guessing that much
of the resistance to marijuana from social conservatives -- including
the otherwise sensible Ms. Kay-- likely has nothing to do with the
actual effects of the drug. For a certain kind of conservative
thinker, the goal is not to align policy and science. It is to
freeze-dry our society in its current (or, better yet, past) form --
complete with senseless hypocrisies. Better we die from our fathers'
store-bought poisons, the theory goes, than choke a bit on their contraband.

If such a reflexive reverence for the status quo doesn't qualify as
"mental torpor," what does?